Pygora Kids Update

Lots of information about the kids and their parents has been added to the Pygora Goats for Sale Page.  There's still more to add: I want to say more about my herd in general, and to add helpful information about Pygora fiber and what the individual micron counts mean.

I always miss the best photo opportunities, but here's a keeper from this morning:

Kids and Tina 04-10-13

Pygora Babies

The babies started arriving 22 March.  Tina had a set of twins on that day, and Tulip delivered 23 March.  I had planned for kids to arrive late April/early May but my buck had different plans and his persistence paid off!  So far, it's all boys!  They have been disbudded already; neutering will be postponed.

Tina's Kids

It's likely that any kids that Lily produces will arrive on my schedule: late April/early May.  More details will appear on the Pygora Goats for Sale Page.

Tulip and Kids

Rock Climbing 101 for Baby Goats

A little iMovie knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Summer, Swiftly...

It's just not been a summer for blogging.  I envy those who blog regularly, with beautiful and well-written posts.  I take photos and they languish.

But that doesn't mean the summer has been unblogworthy.  Here's a feeble attempt to catch up:

Natural Dyes Workshop with Sara Goodman

In mid July I spent three days with Sara Goodman, learning about using natural dye extracts for dyeing fiber.  This was one of the seminars offered through NEWS: New England Weavers Seminar.  I've kept quiet about it on this blog but using natural materials for dyeing has been on my mind this year.  When it comes to natural dyes I'm most interested in sustainability and focusing on materials that can be gathered locally.  This workshop involved using dye extracts from far away places... but I'm still glad I participated.

Samples from Sara Goodman's Natural Dye Workshop

Here are some of my projects from that workshop:
At twelve o'clock are some skeins of the first yarn that I had commercially-spun years ago; one dyed with walnut extract and one with a mixture of extracts.  Perhaps a shawl.

At three o'clock  is a skein of my sock yarn, originally dyed with a local plant material, then overdyed in the indigo vat that we learned all about.  I tried to allow some of the original color show through the indigo.

Center: dye samples on a silk strip.

At six to eight: a small pre-felt dyed in a mix of extracts.

The remainder: some of my lambswool yarn painted with a variety of colors for warp, along with a skein of the same yarn for weft.  Both were over-dyed in the indigo vat.  Enough for two scarves.

Would you like to see how yarn dyed in an indigo vat changes color as it is lifted out and exposed to oxygen?  Follow this link.

And here are my Pygora girls, up to no good.  Notice that when I called Tina's name at the beginning of the clip, she answered.

Finally, yarn destined for Meadow Muffins, dyed with alder cones, and two intensities of walnut.  Gathered from trees that are in or next to the pastures that my sheep graze.  Cafe au lait?

Meadow Muffin yarn, dyed with locally-gathered dye materials

Socks from Sojourner Design Yarn

My local customer who enjoys knitting with Meadow Muffins yarn has been at it again!  This time she used a more subtle combination of hues.  Just in case you haven't seen them, here's the shot of her first pair of socks with this yarn.

I'm hoping to see more work from this gal!  Also, notice the backgrounds.  The first socks were finished early last summer and laid out on lovely green grass.  The new socks ... done in December and resting on pristine Northampton snow.

Speaking of snow, here's a view of my sheep pressing in around the winter haylage feeder this morning as the snow was falling.

I've refreshed the Home Page of my website with a couple of photos taken this morning.  In fact, you'll find a number of changes and additions (such as the Prefelt page) there.  Here's one of the photos I added to that page:

I've added a few listings for carded wool to my Zibbet Shop... now I just need to figure out how to make all those Meadow Muffin hues available online!

Thinking about Rugs...

Sea Glass

This rug was actually completed a year ago but I don't recall putting it in my blog.  It's going in now because someone asked about weaving with roving and fleecewoven rugs on a tapestry mail list to which I subscribe and I wanted to show an example.  This 40" by 28" rug was handwoven with strips of roving from my own flock that I had hand dyed.  It was very slow-going as I didn't find it practical to wrap lengths of roving on a rag shuttle but chose instead to insert each piece by hand.

Sea Glass, close-up

I had fully intended to place this rug on the floor in a guest bedroom.  However... when I imagined dogs lying on it and wondered about how difficult it would be to remove dog hair from the roving, I decided that this would be a wall rug.

Because dogs are an important part of my life and this is their house too, I made the decision after weaving this rug that all rugs that go on floors will be small enough to pick up and hang over the railing outdoors, hosing off if need be, and they will be constructed of warp materials that can tolerate that treatment.

I have also learned to like using a temple since this rug was woven!

Here was my first rug, woven rather flimsily on a jack loom.  It is on the floor of my sunroom and you can see that these rugs do indeed attract dog hair.

Fleece-woven rug, natural colors

A closer look:

Close-up, fleecewoven natural colored rug

Here's one that's dyed; it was the second rug I wove, also flimsy because I wove it on a jack loom.  The rug was dyed AFTER weaving which was quite the project!

Dyed fleecewoven rug

And a closer look:

Dyed fleecewoven rug, close-up

Roving and fleecewoven rugs are in my opinion tedious projects.  I would not undertake one again but I would use unspun wools in smaller projects because the nubbly texture, particularly with fleeceweaving, is luscious.

Here is, for me, a happy compromise.  These are also a bit flimsy because they were woven on jack looms but they make nice scatter rugs that can be washed, shaken out, etc.  I don't mind using them on the floor- your can see the dog hair as I didn't even bother to shake them out before photographing.

Rugs handwoven with hand-spun yarn

 The close-ups:

These rugs were woven with some of the miles of yarn that I spun as a beginner.  Here and there I laid in short lengths of dyed roving or fleece.  These rugs wove up much faster and still had a nice texture.  Now that I have a Swedish loom with an overhead beater I need to weave up some more of them.  Come to think of it, I need to spin up more yarn to weave rugs with!

Pygora Update:

Everyone is settling in nicely.  The girls are getting downright goofy, racing around and leaping off rocks etc at times.  They are respectful of but quite curious about the dogs.  The buckling, who must be kept separate from the doelings because they're too young to be bred, got a buddy today.  I lured my meat goat wether into hip pen so everyone is happy.